it up against you; but I want you to do me a favor.”

The lawyer had turned the key in the lock and stood near the door, watching him intently, noting the close-cropped head, the thin, pallid face, the nondescript garments of the wayfarer.

“You managed to escape,” he finally said, slowly.

“Yes, I did.” The man coughed, clutching the table for support.

“I got away last week,” he explained, panting. “Yes—and I stole the clothes,” with a glance at the sleeves of his rough gray shirt. “I’m a thief, now, just like you, Westcott.”

The other made an inarticulate sound in his throat.

“We’ll let all that pass,” the intruder said, with a toss of one gaunt hand. “I’m up to no harm, but I’ve got to have help. I’ve got out of that hell you left me in at Phoenix; but it won’t do me any good. I’m dying!”

Another fit of coughing shook him, until he reeled. Westcott pushed a chair toward him and he sank into it, still gripping the table.

“I’m dying,” he said again, when the cough 8had spent itself, “and I want to get back and die in God’s country.”

8

Westcott sat down opposite him, still watching him, intently.

“I can’t walk back,” the man went on, “and I ain’t fit to beat it back. You’re welcome to the fifteen hundred you got off me; but can’t you—for the love of God, won’t you—give me the price of a ticket back to Iowa?”

His dull, sunken eyes were akindle, and he leaned forward, an agony of eagerness in his eyes. The prison-born look of age fell from him for the moment and it became apparent that he was not only a young man, but must once have been a comely one, with a powerful frame.

“I heard you were attorney for the Company here,” he went on, as Westcott still kept silent. “You ought to be able to do that for me. You had fifteen hundred of mine.”

The attorney flinched, ever so slightly, then he rose, dropping the revolver into his coat-pocket, and took a turn about the room.

“I—I wasn’t such a beast as it looks,” he finally said, speaking with difficulty. “I’ve been ashamed of myself: I meant to stay and try to clear you. I don’t know how I came to do it; 

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